Article #5 in a 12-part series.
- 1 - Upgrade Skyrim with Mods
- 2 - Skyrim Immersion: Environment
- 3 - Pretty Skyrim: Elements
- 4 - Skyrim Life
- 5 - this article
- 6 - Pretty Skyrim People
- 7 - Skyrim Gear 1: Clothing
- 8 - Skyrim Gear 2: Akavir
- 9 - Skyrim Gear 3: Light Armor
- 10 - Skyrim Gear 4: Heavy Armor
- 11 - Setup for Script Work with Bethesda's Creation Kit and Notepad++
- 12 - Body Conversions for Skyrim Using BodySlide, Outfit Studio
This Skyrim Game Guide will help you install a Custom Body Replacer for both Female body and Male body, it’s important to follow the steps in the right order to avoid having to troubleshoot later. There are suggested Skyrim Mods for textures and Armour, the popular ones being CBBE and UNP textures; And of course the UNP and CBBE Armour mods. So before you get to the emotional point of the mod author I linked, relax. And for the love of God stop downvoting mod authors to oblivion for having an opinion that's different than yours. Or at the very least be polite about it. At least a quarter of the mods I have installed are either hidden or deleted.
Dragonborn always looked like a robot when standing or sitting, and have you noticed how woman walk exactly like men? It might also be nice if a secondary weapon shows on a character. New stand or sit idles are easy fixes, but dual sheathing or special body physics (boob jiggle or combat) require some extra steps.
Here I cover how to install new bodies, with or without breast and butt physics, new animations for idles or walks, and having two sheathed weapons show up on your character. In another post I cover my choices for body replacers, skin textures, and more on making characters pretty.
Keep in mind that some non-FNIS custom animations replace existing animations, and for each action you generally get one animation. Your character can sit in a different position, cross-legged or whatever, and will always sit that way with a few exceptions. I share a couple suggestions below under step H.
Dual sheathing, including shield or staff on back, needs a special skeleton. Boob physics (HDT) requires a new skeleton and supporting body mesh. I’m using XPMSE skeleton since it has both covered along with many popular body meshes. For best results certain requirements, including optional animation packs, must be installed before installing XPMSE.
Use a mod organizer supporting FOMOD, such as NMM or MO, to include install options. If you’re new to installing mods, see my first post in this series.
Installation order matters:
These install steps are based on documentation for XPMSE by Groovtama. Follow the steps no matter if you want breast physics or dual sheath. I bet you never considered boobs and swords depended so much on the same things. You’ll want to follow the same order for hair and cape physics, too. This tutorial assumes you want HDT physics for body jiggle. Other pure-animation BBP mods also exist that don’t require HDT Physics Extensions.
Review the XPMSE description page for mods not compatible which include some HDT equipment.
After installation of other mods, you may review load order on this Google doc by the HDT Physics Extension team.
Terminology
- body mesh replacer: the shape of the character’s body supporting animations given a skeleton.
- (T)BBP (Tender) Breast and Butt Physics. Uses animations (such as walking) for jiggle.
- BBP-HDT: Requires HDT Physics Extensions for jiggle reacting to character motion.
- HDT-PE: Physics Extensions supporting body, hair, capes, wings, etc using the same in-game Havok engine.
- skeleton: same idea as your body, but may include extra bones for breasts, belly, or butts. Hair and capes may have their own skeletons.
Note that some (T)BBP options may be pure animations without HDT physics. For these you need a supported walking, running, or combat animation that include bode jiggle. HDT body jiggles reacting to character motion using the in-game physics engine.
A. Install first in this order
This example assumes HDT-BPP physics using the Havok engine which requires SKSE, XPMSE skeleton, and HDT-PE for original Skyrim.
- SKSE, available on Steam
- SkyUI (optional, but handy for MCM)
- Fores New Idles (FNIS)
SkyUI includes a mod-control menu (MCM) that some mods support to include options or more information. One of my steps below include using SkyUI’s MCM to select weapon sheathing options. Many body movement sequences and custom animations use FNIS. It comes with a generator that you’ll need to run whenever you add or remove a mod that uses FNIS. We’ll generate after a few steps.
B. Install female body
For widest custom clothing and armor support, I recommend “Caliente’s Beautiful Body Edition” (CBBE), “DIMONIZED UNP” by dimon99, or SeveNBase. With extra work outfits may be converted to whatever you choose. The defaults are nude, but several include underwear options or search for prettier underwear mods. You may install new skin textures after this or at a later time. Boob jiggle requires a BPP body mesh. To add BPP to UNP, you have several choices.
For CBBE with HDT BPP:
- Install Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Edition (CBBE). Choice of CBBE-Curvy, CBBE-Slim, or CBBE-Vanilla.
- Install BodySlide 2 and Outfit Studio by Ousnius and Caliente.
- Open BodySlide from your SkyrimDataCalienteTools folder.
- For Outfit/Body on top-left, choose CBBE Body HDT
- Choose your Preset. I chose CBBE Slim.
- Press the Build button at bottom.
Optionally, install new skin texture now or later. I use “Mature Skin” 2. Your undressed female characters have BBP, but clothing or light armor also needs to support when dressed.
C. Install male body
Again, defaults are nude, but include underwear options. I like the “FavoredSouls” mesh option in “Better Males” best, but SoS-lite (adult site) isn’t bad either.
- Better Males comes in choice of “Sundracon” or “FavoredSouls” body meshes.
For “Better Males” if you want different body size than default, you’ll need to do some manual copying by moving contents of labeled sub-folders.
D. (Optional) install custom combat/sheathing animations
I tried this out, but ended up not using these animations. Some animations are covered by XPMSE. The installer lists multiple animation replacements that you may pick with checkboxes. If you want one, best installed before XPMSE.
E. Install the skeleton
- Install RaceMenu before XPMSE.
- Install XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended 3 (XPMSE) by Groovtama:
Leave most of the options at default unless you have other mods that apply. The descriptions explain everything. Overwrite previous skeleton files. Note in general, XPMSE should be late in load order. When installing other skeleton animation mods, run LOOT or check your load order. Even if you don’t plan on using “RaceMenu” to craft your character’s face, I recommend using it for improved functionality with XPMSE and you might decide to play with “RaceMenu” in the future.
Note that some older help posts recommended deleting the female skeleton, but as noted in big, bold letters on the XPMSE page, do NOT delete the skeleton file.
F. Install physics
- Install HDT Physics Extensions by HydrogensaysHDT
- Install HDT Breast And Butt Physics by threedeedevil
Note that older tips suggested adding a [HAVOK] section to your Skyrim.ini, but with latest extensions it’s been recommended (“Skyrim Stability Guide”) to leave as default with iNumThreads=1.
This is a good time to run LOOT, Wyre Bash, or similar tool to make sure the load order is good and XPMSE is positioned correctly (after any body plugins) according to Groovtama.
G. FNIS generate
Located by default at Skyrim/Data/tools/GenerateFNIS__for__Users as GenerateFNISforUsers.exe. Raptor chess interface alternatives for mac pro. You’ll need to run this each time you add or remove a FNIS animation. Likely, you’ll need the “SKELETON Arm Fix” option. Gender-specific animations may need checking if using gender-specific animation mods such as “Pretty Combat Animations” by dualsun. Only include other options if you have the relevant mods.
If you load a game and your character stands with arms and legs stuck outward (t-pose), run this generator again.
Be aware that adding a high number of animations increases the chances of CTD (crash) when loading a saved game. Note the number the generator reports and aim for no more than a couple thousand. I recommend not including pose mods on regular play-through; load when you want to take screenshots and unload before continuing play. Workarounds include loading older save file first, or disabling unused animations from animation index text files and re-generating FNIS. Best to plan play-through around heavy-animation mods, choosing supporting mods for that theme, to keep the memory usage down.
H. (optional) Add new idle and walk
Let’s fix the robotic sitting and standing with some simple replacers. “Pretty Female Idles” and “Pretty Sit Idle” doesn’t require FNIS and replaces the default sit and stand with one of each among choices from the installer. Check each example picture to see which one you like including a couple combination poses which your character will switch between. “FNIS Sexy Move” changes how women walk. It uses a weird token system in inventory so each NPC will remember her walk, but you may turn it off in MCM. While in MCM, select which walks not to include and if to include while wearing armor. Some of the walks appear too exaggerated for me. This also changes the female run which looks a bit on the girlish side. Remember to run FNIS Generator again.
- Pretty Female Idles by dualsun
- Pretty Sit Idle by dualsun
- FNIS Sexy Move by fore (run generator)
I. (optional) Dual Sheath Redux (DSR)
Before installing DSR, you may want to run LOOT, Wyre, or similar tool to make sure the load order is correct at this point paying attention to XPSME position as explained by Groovtama.
This mod will add a second weapon on the character’s belt, optionally put shield or staff on back. Consider that “Dual Sheath Redux” is a cosmetic mod, and that it may increase script activity with NPCs and compete with other area scripts. NPC shields on back may be disabled in MCM. Also, some custom weapons may not be supported. See the description page for details.
If you want “Campfire”, “Arise - Black Sacrament”, “War Within Weapons”, or other mods with “Dual Sheath Redux” support, install them now. If added later then run patcher again.
- Make sure you have Java 8 installed. If not, get it.
- Install Dual Sheath Redux using NMM or another mod organizer.
- In installer, check the box for Other Mods which will detect “Campfire” and others.
- Go to your Skyrim/Data/SkyProc Patchers/Dual Sheath Redux Patch/ folder.
- Run Dual Sheath Redux Patch.jar
After adding a new mod, run the patcher again. Naturally, the patch file must load after weapon and armor plugins. It may be easiest to keep the patch file last so as not to have to move it whenever running the patcher.
J. (optional) Sheath style options
Some mods support alternate styles, but you may want other styles for other weapons. Do you like two swords on back? Easy. With custom sword drawing animation? Depends. XPMSE covers some, or if you did step D, you may have it. Keep in mind that these animations are 1-to-1 replacers, so changing them mid-game or having different animations for different characters may not happen without extra work. Using the MCM, you can let each character sheath their weapons in different styles.
- Open MCM and select XPMSE
- Select “Styles”
- Browse the weapon types and make your change. The screenshot below shows two swords on back selected.
- Check your character. If it’s not working, try un-checking Style Fitting Animations, check your load order, or find out if another mod has replaced the corresponding animation.
(T)BBP/HDT clothing and armor
Select your favorite clothing and armor supporting your body type. It doesn’t make sense for armor to jiggle, except perhaps lightweight leather, or limited breast coverage, but most clothing should. If you customized your body, or chose a preset other than default, look for BodySlide files or create your own. If you’re using DSR, remember to run patcher after adding a new custom armor.
Here are a few CBBE-compatible mesh mods to get you started:
- Caliente’s Vanilla Outfits for CBBE (no BPP) to fit outfits to your preset.
- Omnisway Clothing Replacer - CBBE BodySlide BBP to update clothing for BBP with your preset.
- Gwelda Dawnguard Armor has optional CBBE-BBP and BodySlide files.
For “Omnisway Clothing” use BodySlide to pick which clothes you want to update, adjust preset, and build.
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If your favorite outfit doesn’t support your body type or BBP, see my tutorial “Body Conversions for Skyrim Using BodySlide, Outfit Studio” (#11).
Common issues
Check your character and NPCs for animation, custom idle, custom walk, and skin textures. If you find a problem, review installation order and mod load order. Pure texture replacers can be re-installed, and pay attention to file overwrites to achieve your desired result.
Character stuck with arms and legs out
Ensure XPMSE skeleton is installed correctly. Run FNIS generate.
Female vampire character burnt-face
The “Dawnguard” burnt-face happens after your vampire character spends too much time in sunlight and you’re using custom body texture.
- avoid sunlight
- toggle vampire lord
- or copy your custom femalehead files (2) over femaleheadvampire files in Datatexturesactorscharacterfemale folder
Neck seam / mismatched head-body colors / dark vampire head
The problem may occur on just NPCs, only your character, or just vampires. Causes include mismatched textures (custom face doesn’t update body), wrong installation order, unintended file overwrite occurred, loose files leftover from old installation (removed mod) that don’t belong, or a mod missing updated face-gen data. You do not need another mod to fix neck seams. A neck-seam mod is a bandage leaving the source of the problem still in your data.
Note: using the console command on selected NPC, “setnpcweight 10” may temporarily fix the issue, but neck seam may return. This indicates a problem loading correct data due to extra loose files or mod conflicts.
- Neck seams or color mismatch: Check if your chosen face texture updates the body. Re-install custom body/face texture(s), or check for old loose files that need removing.
- Neck seam/color mismatch for just one NPC: check for mod updating facegendata file, or left over file from old mod. Try updating the face-gen data file for the NPC using Creation Kit: export with Ctrl+F4 on selected NPC.
On using Creation Kit (CK) to export face-gen data:
For Dawnguard characters, you may need to edit SkyrimSkyrimEditor.ini with bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=1 and bAllowMultipleMasterFiles=1 under [General] section.
- Open CK and select File->Data and choose any body or texture esp-plugins you may have. (yes to all on warn)
- Go to Character->Actors and race (for Hert, choose Nord).
- Type in character’s name in filter.
- Find character entry indicated by “NPC” tag.
- Select NPC entry and press Ctrl+F4. Say yes to export face data.
If many vampires have dark heads, also see “100% Working Dawnguard Female Vampire Face Fix” which explains how to copy face textures for all female vampire NPCs in addition to your character.
If you can’t track down the cause then reset to clean Data folder and install your mods again observing proper install and load order. Pay attention to overwriting files.
One-handed blades not on back/hip/ankle
- In MCM XPMSE styles, try toggling matching animation checkboxes.
- Duel Sheath Redux with custom armor: ensure supports DSR; check if need a patch, run patcher.
Duel Sheath Redux: shield not on back
- After installing new armor, or load order changes: Run the patcher.
- Happens occasionally. Toggle in MCM by unselecting, close MCM back to game, open MCM and select again. Or reload saved game.
Too many scripts updating nearby NPCs such as DSR and “Wet and Cold” may cause some updates to not happen. If shields fail to attach to back too often, consider turning off some of these cosmetic features in DSR and other mods.
Article #5 in a 12-part series.
- 1 - Upgrade Skyrim with Mods
- 2 - Skyrim Immersion: Environment
- 3 - Pretty Skyrim: Elements
- 4 - Skyrim Life
- 5 - this article
- 6 - Pretty Skyrim People
- 7 - Skyrim Gear 1: Clothing
- 8 - Skyrim Gear 2: Akavir
- 9 - Skyrim Gear 3: Light Armor
- 10 - Skyrim Gear 4: Heavy Armor
- 11 - Setup for Script Work with Bethesda's Creation Kit and Notepad++
- 12 - Body Conversions for Skyrim Using BodySlide, Outfit Studio
Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls are trademarks of Bethesda Softworks LLC. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
One of the things that definitely hasn’t aged quite well in Skyrim is the way characters look.
It sometimes feels like both men and women could look far more shallow than they do now, which would make the Skyrim experience much easier on the eyes.
In any case, a layer of realism seems to be missing. Which even shows in the presets that you see when you’re first creating your character.
There are countless mods that improve character appearance and make them look like real humans, which makes the game surprisingly better than it already is.
I’ve refrained from adding mods that improve beauty in erotic-packed ways, but I have added one or two mods that do a great job in improving the bodies of characters in the game. Which is always great whether you’re looking for a handsome husband or a gorgeous wife.
20. CharGen Extension
Even though this mod has been already discontinued as it is included in a different package, the standalone version still deserves a place on this list because of how awesome it is (and how good of a tool it also is for modders).
This mod allows you to edit characters better than ever before whenever you visit the character creation menu (even if you trigger it via commands).
19. Superior Lore-Friendly Hair(HD Textures)
Let’s face it – hair in Skyrim just doesn’t look good.
There’s something really off about the way textures seem to work, as it would appear like hair is only one texture on its own and it doesn’t really feel like you could see each individual hair when walking around.
This mod was carefully crafted to make it so every single hairstyle in the game looks much better, which helps Skyrim feel more natural as well. Haircare is very important, after all.
18. Freckle Mania 2
I know – you didn’t know that you wanted freckles in Skyrim before you saw this mod.
Don’t worry, I didn’t know it either!
This mod showed me just how amazing freckles can look and how much natural redhead characters look with such a mod installed.
The mod adds freckles overlays to the characters in the game and it works well for characters that have freckles on their entire bodies.
Just like the CharGen Extension, however, it does require you to have the RaceMenu mod installed to make everything run smoothly.
17. Actually Attractive Elves
Elves are usually known as the most beautiful creatures in most fantasy worlds.
In fact it’s almost unfathomable to think that female elf could be ugly simply because legends say how most elven women are most beautiful creatures in the land.
Sadly this doesn’t seem to be the case in Skyrim.
Some Elves are just plain ugly and they don’t serve the purpose of their history quite well.
Thankfully this mod aims to correct that with an overhaul to the way all elves look.
You’ll notice how Elven women will become 10 times more attractive when creating a new character. This will give you enough defaults to create the female elf of your dreams.
16. KS Hairdos Renewal
Have you ever felt like the base Skyrim hairstyle are quite bland?
Me too, which is why I specifically looked for a mod that corrects this issue.
This mod adds over 600 new hairstyles for women and a little less than 100 hairstyles for men, making it one of the most complete packs of hairstyle that you’ll find on the Nexus.
Options are aplenty when creating a character after this mod is installed.
15. The Eyes of Beauty
Much like the issue with hairstyles, The Eyes of Beauty aims to correct the blandness which you can feel whenever you look any character into their eyes.
It really makes no sense that all eyes are so similar.
It feels like the entire world of Skyrim is lacking in variety. Silent hunter 5 crack 1.2 skidrow download. This mod adds many new colors and types of eye shapes to the game, which makes everything look as good as you can imagine(or even better!)
14. KJ Tattoos
Combining this mod with a better body mod would make Skyrim feel a hundred time more realistic.
Come to think of it, it really makes no sense that Nordic warriors only have a couple of types of face paint to choose from to create their traditional markings.
This mod allows your character to be fully tattooed thanks to the meshes that it adds and modifies in the game files.
13. Female Hairstyles with Physics
The days of watching your female character move around with what appears to be a plastic wig on her head are over.
This adds a ton of new hairstyles to the game. All of which are fully animated and move around as your character walks or runs.
Skyrim Se Body Paint
It makes women look much better to the eye, and the game feels more natural as a consequence of it!
12. Seductive Lips HD
The maker of this mod has truly put a lot of effort into making the lips of women in Skyrim look like the actual lips of a woman.
As you might’ve noticed before, there really aren’t any significant differences between the lips of a woman and the lips of a man. Except perhaps a bit of shape.
This mod overhauls the way women’s lips look making the game much more akin to reality and helping you get even more immersed with female characters in Tamriel.
And trust me, some of them have some juicy lips.
11. Eyes of Aber
You know what? Not everything needs to be about realism with these beauty mods.
In fact, I’ve been very attached to realism so far and I’ve avoided some pretty exaggerated mods to keep things as natural as possible.
However it wouldn’t be fair to exclude the Eyes of Aber mod from this list.
The work that was put into making these eyes as beautiful as possible is tremendous, and you’re probably going to really enjoy something like this.
It’s a mod that will truly give a unique look to any character to which you want to apply these to.
10. Northborn Scars
How awesome would it be for some characters to have giant scars running across their bodies?
It seems like something Bethesda shouldn’t have overlooked when they first created Skyrim, as it would make sense for people in a land where everything attacks you to be as scared as they get.
Thankfully modders haven’t overlooked this and the Northborn Scars mod is the best out of all mods that add scars to the game.
This will replace all of the scars that come with the vanilla game and add a bunch more detailed ones that look miles better than the originals. The danger is real folks.
9. Better Vampire Fangs & Eyes
There’s nothing scarier than a vampire. Well, at least, that’s what some people think.
However this is far from what Skyrim often reflects.
Vampires in the game just don’t look realistic enough, and the main culprit of it has to be their fangs.
They just look so underwhelming in the game that it makes it almost impossible to get immersed in the fun.
With this mod you’ll be able to speak to vampires and instantly feel fear strike deep inside you.
With this mod you’ll be able to speak to vampires and instantly feel fear strike deep inside you.
Their fangs will be way more noticeable and vampires will look better as a consequence of it.
8. WICO – Windsong Immersive Character Overhaul
Things are getting serious now and you’ll notice how the quality of mods from now on seems to skyrocket.
The Windsong Immersive Character Overhaul is literally an overhaul to most characters in the game, which includes those that come with the DLCs.
This makes everything look far better than it does in the base game.
It truly does justice to the reputation of Skyrim and makes things more realistic than you’ve ever seen them.
This is one of the most complete retextures that I’ve ever come across.
This is one of the most complete retextures that I’ve ever come across.
If you like things that look vanilla while also completing what’s missing then this mod is exactly what you need.
7. Brows
HD facial hair makes things look far more realistic than they would with regular facial hair, and eyebrows aren’t an exception to this.
In fact, you could keep the vanilla body textures and simply add this amazing Brows mod and people would instantly look far better than they do in the base game.
Skyrim Se Warpaint Mod
This one and the Beards mod are must-haves if you want to immerse yourself and have the most realistic of characters possible.
6. Beards
This adds a majestic variety of detailed beards into the game and, as said in the last mod, it’s a must-have.
Especially if you want proper male characters wandering around.
This Beards mod is made by the same person that made the Brows mod, which doesn’t only make them compatible on paper but they also look very similar in the game.
This just adds a new level of beauty and immersion to your characters. And those who feel the need to have the most realistic males out there definitely need to give both of these a try.
5. Total Character Makeover
Okay, okay. This one isn’t really one mod.
However I feel like it’s important to include it as it compiles the best mods ever created for Skyrim in terms of character looks.
The Total Character Makeover is a mod compilation which helps you install some of the best mods ever created in one simple pack.
Most mods that are included here have already been reviewed on this list, and they all work incredibly well together as proven by TCM.
4. Enhanced Character Edit
This mod serves as a way to help you edit characters in a much more natural and realistic manner than what the base game allows.
This adds a ton of new different sliders, modifying different parts of bodies and making characters look even better if you put in a bit of effort to create them.
Pretty cool!
3. Skyrim Glowing Eyes
This is definitely a fan favorite when it comes to eye mods in Skyrim.
Even though the mod isn’t being updated anymore, it’s one of the finest eye mods in the Nexus community and one of the most downloaded beauty mods of Skyrim that you can find online.
Skyrim Glowing Eyes adds a selection of eyes that glow in the dark, which adds some more depth to the game and makes characters either frightening or gorgeous at night.
2. ApachiiSkyHair
This is another great mod for those who feel like the base game is lacking hairstyles.
It doesn’t only add cool new hairstyles for humans, it also makes Orcs and Elves able to select new types of hairs when creating a character of those races.
You might notice how some of these styles look familiar if you’ve played The Sims, The Witcher or even Oblivion.
Most of the hairstyles added with this mod are conversions from styles that were present in other games! Go figure.
1. Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Edition
Okay, this is the one NSFW mod that I had to include here.
Honestly it would not make sense to let this one slip given how detailed it is.
It adds naked textures to both males and females in the game. It also makes both types of bodies fully customizable by adding new sliders which you can easily tweak as you please.
This mod basically allows you to create realistic, custom bodies going as far as your heart desires.
It puts the game on a whole other level and if you don’t mind a bit of NSFW stuff mixed in here then it would be a no-brainer to try this out.
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